Happy Birthday Lindsay!

Today is our niece Lindsay's first birthday. The year really flew by and we can't believe how much she's grown and how many neat things she does. The boys just love their little niece, especially Derek. He's really taken Lindsay under his wing. He's going to be a great big cousin. We're so glad that Lindsay is a part of our family and we look forward to watching the cousins grow together.

We love you,

Uncle David, Aunt Helen, Derek, and Adam

Sleep Over

Derek invited his friend, Morgan, to sleep over last night. He first called Morgan about the sleep over on Thursday night and there was some phone tag that went on because Morgan was at a swim meet. We thought Derek was going to bust with anticipation. He finalized the plans Friday morning and he almost couldn't stand it as Helen and the boys ran errands and bought a belated birthday gift for Morgan. Finally, Morgan arrived and Derek gave him the birthday gift, which was a Lego car that the boys immediately began assembling.

When I got home, we ordered some pizzas and took the boys to the pool for dinner. After the pool, the boys got cleaned up and then watched a movie while they ate popcorn and sour patch kids. They all slept on the floor in Derek's room. Derek was very good about including Adam and Adam did a good job of not irritating the older boys.

Blogging's More Difficult In The Summer

Helen cleaning Adam's boo boo's from his bike wreck

Now that we're spending a lot of evenings down at the pool and the kids and Helen are staying up late, I'm finding it difficult to get my normal alone time to blog. Helen's been documenting the Disney trip on paper and I've been going through the pictures and video, so hopefully we'll get something up soon.

On Saturday, my brother Jason and his wife Laine hosted a barbecue in honor of Helen's birthday, which was on the 7th. My mom, Nini, came over as well. The boys had fun seeing everyone and wading in the gold fish pond and ignoring Jason's requests to quit throwing rocks into the pond.

We got to see how Jason and Laine have redecorated their house to accommodate Laine's artistic interests. Laine shocked us all with her new platinum blond hair color and she filled us in about starting on her Fine Arts degree this week. She's a very special multi talented person. She's already got an undergraduate degree in actuarial science with many professional accreditations and a couple years ago switched gears to pursue her interest in art. She has her own web site at http://www.boostgallery.com/. Go Lainey.

Today, Adam took a spill while riding his bike and got some pretty good boo boos. He likes to ride close to the curb, despite our warnings not to do so.

I had a tennis match and the family came down to watch before heading to the pool. Helen said that Derek was doing much better on his dives. Yesterday, he had a pretty good belly flop. He's a little rusty. Adam has been swimming all over the place, but he doesn't like to use his arms. He looks like a little torpedo.

I headed down to the pool afterwards to join them and have beer with some guys from the team. We were all wiped out after our long day in the sun. The boys are going to be tired when they have to get up for 8:00 tennis lessons in the morning.

Adam Lost His First Tooth

Adam lost his first tooth today. We thought for sure that he would lose one of his top front teeth first since he's almost knocked them out multiple times, but it was a bottom front tooth. He was eating an apple when he came into the kitchen and told Helen, "I need a favor - did I lose a tooth?" He smiled and there was a little red spot where his tooth used to be. Unfortunately, Helen couldn't find the tooth so we assumed that he swallowed it. Derek was just as excited as Adam and quickly wrote a note to the Tooth Fairy explaining that Adam lost his tooth.

We're really enjoying the Summer and Helen staying home. We can stay up late and watch movies now. Last night we watched "Casino Royale". We thought it was great. I love the new no nonsense Bond, especially compared to the hokey Roger Moore Bond and wimpy Pierce Brosnan Bond.

Derek is in Cub Scout day camp. The first day he cried when Helen picked him up because he couldn't shoot the bow and arrow. We weren't sure he would go back, but he did and had a much better day today. Adam and Helen have been enjoying their time together. Helen keeps getting verklempt at the thought of Adam starting kindergarten in the Fall. He definitely doesn't seem as ready as Derek was. Adam is small for his age and his sweet voice makes him seem younger because he pronounces his L's as W's, Y's as L's, and Th's as D's. For example, "I don't wike dat lellow shirt". He also loves to cuddle and has a way of balling up when he cuddles that makes him seem like a 3 year old. Helen just looks at me with tears in her eyes and says, "He's not ready - I'm not ready." But Adam is very excited about starting kindergarten.

There was a NY Times article about the pros and cons of starting kindergarten later. The gist was that kindergarten used to be more about play and socialization, but now kids have to hit the ground running and that affluent parents are delaying the start of kindergarten to give their kids an advantage. It also said that no parent that delays the start ever has second thoughts, but that plenty of parents that started their kids on time had second thoughts.

Helen talked to a parent today at Scout camp that told the school up front that she planned on her son spending two years in kindergarten. We've decided that Adam will start this Fall and that he can always spend another year in kindergarten if he needs it.

Back From Disney

We're back from our week long stay at Walt Disney World. We had the best time! In fact, we were having such a good time that we decided to hit Blizzard Beach and Magic Kingdom one last time and didn't get on the road until 8 pm, which put us home about 4 am this morning.

I am just in awe of the scale of Disney World and how well it is run. It truly is a magical place. I lived in Pompano Beach until I was 7, so I went to Disney World when I was little and again in High School, but I didn't grasp the scale of Disney World and Orlando, in general, until we went there on a last minute trip around New Year's 2003.

I had heard about MouseSavers.com and started doing some research and ran across all the various message boards where people were using all the Disney acronyms and signing all their postings by listing all the years they had gone and where they had stayed. I told Helen, "You won't believe all the stuff out here on Disney." We decided to head down and check things out without any expectations in terms of really doing the parks since Derek was 3 and 1/2 and Adam was only about 9 months. That year, we stayed at the Caribe Royale. We were always hustling to make it to the breakfast buffet before it closed and then would go back to the room so Helen could feed Adam and then Derek wanted to go to the pool and then it was lunch and nap time. One time we finally got out and headed to Animal Kingdom. We drove up about 4:30 and they said that it closed in an hour. Luckily, the Magic Kingdom stayed open late and we went there a couple nights. We also checked out Sea World and drove over to Cape Canaveral to check out Kennedy Space Center.

In the Summer of 2004, we went to Orlando again with Helen's family. We stayed at a condo complex near Disney World. The kids enjoyed visiting with their extended family, but the logistics of trying to get everyone on the same page were too much. I just don't enjoy getting 10 people to agree on where to have dinner or walking 10 abreast through a theme park.

With the boys being 8 and 5 now, we thought it was a great time to stay on the Disney property and really do Disney right with just our immediate family. That's what we did and we couldn't have asked for a better time. Hopefully, we'll be able to do it again in a few years. Once I get settled, I'll put together a detailed trip report for all of you that can't get enough of the details.

I turned off comments on the blog while I was gone and think I'll just leave them off. I like the idea of the blog being an interactive experience with feedback from the readers, but it was just too consuming time-wise and energy-wise, especially when I started having to defend my comment responses to Helen. We've been together for almost 20 years so she's heard most of it before, but she doesn't like me antagonizing everybody and even she gets overwhelmed by my song and dance when it comes flooding out like it did with all the comment responses last week.